Chaotic scene as shots fired at Montreal college

[Canadian Socialist]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/09/13/shots-dawson.html

Police are on the scene of a shooting at a Montreal college, where at least four people have reportedly been injured, two critically.

Students at Dawson College told reporters they heard several shots in the building at around lunchtime.

Eyewitnesses say they saw a tall skinny man wearing a black trenchcoat, with a mohawk haircut walk into the cafeteria carrying a large gun. He apparently fired several shots.

Student Michel Boyer sought shelter behind a reception desk after seeing a gunman and fleeing from the vicinity of the shootings.

"I thought this was fake, and it was just an excuse to get out of class," he told CBC Newsworld. "I did run away as soon as I did see that it was real."

His voice shaking, he added: "It was the most scary thing that has ever happened to me."

more at link...

[Parche]

1. shootings

You know this has all the markings of an Al-Kida plot

[Darth_Kitten]

2. Terrible...........

it's still unfolding..... :(

[texas1928]

3. One thing that is bugging the hell out of me is...

MSNBC commentators keep saying well Canada calls the US cowboys due to our gun control... What the fuck does that have to do with this?

[Canadian Socialist]

4. From CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/09/13/canada.shooting.ap/index.html
It looks like one of the shooters committed suicide.

[northamericancitizen]

5. update: 2 of the suspect shooters are dead.

They don't know for sure if there is a third one.

One shooter killed himself and the other one was shot by the police.

A big area of Montreal downtown plus a segment of the subway are shot down.

[951-Riverside]

6. Shooters were angry white or muslim men?

[Igel]

21. Non-sequitur.

"White" doesn't preclude "Muslim", and vice-versa.

[GuillermoX71]

58. Actually he was a Canadian Indian.

[CHIMO]

60. Would

You give your reference.

Thanks

[iverglas]

61. so as not to be confusing

(html fixed)


He was a Canadian of Indian ethnicity and the Sikh religion; one might say "Indian Canadian", but not Canadian Indian. (The "Indians" who are called Native Americans in the US are called First Nations people or Aboriginal people in Canada.)

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1158357012736&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home

(Gill's mother) gives some sketchy biographical information: the family arrived in Canada 20 years ago. She worked in a store but quit her job when she got breast cancer. Her husband doesn't work any more, but according to a family friend, he was once a professor at Toronto university; he does not say which one.

His fatality666 page at vampirefreaks.com says:

Name: Kimveer
Birthday: July 9, 1981
Birthplace: Montreal
Current Location: Canada
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Black
Height: 6 foot 1
Right Handed or Left Handed: Right
Your Heritage: Indian

but apparently the birthplace stated there was inaccurate.

The only possible relevance of his ethnicity in this instance is that he may have been at greater risk of isolation, since first-generation immigrant parents are often unfamiliar with their children's lives in the new culture; he also voiced dislike of bullies at his web page, and so may have suffered something along that line.

[Darth_Kitten]

7. 4 students killed?

per CNN.....quoting some source.

[951-Riverside]

8. This is what they are saying on CP24

[INDIA]

9. Sad

We're not the only country with crazy gun nuts.

[iverglas]

10. 4 people dead per CBC

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/09/13/shots-dawson.html

At least four people were reported dead following a shooting spree Wednesday afternoon at a Montreal college.

Emergency officials help an injured woman outside Dawson College in downtown Montreal. (CBC) Emergency officials help an injured woman outside Dawson College in downtown Montreal. (CBC)

At least 16 other people were reported injured.


...


Wouldn't it just be fine if our neighbours could keep their stupid "terra" remarks and their obnoxious gun-control-fails remarks to themselves for 15 minutes?

[IronLionZion]

11. Anything bad that has happened in Canada, happened in Montreal

hmm...why is that?

I apologize if that was insensitive.

Yes this is a terrible tragedy. Good that they got it under control now.

[iverglas]

12. insensitive?

Anything bad that has happened in Canada, happened in Montreal

Dumb.

I suppose the serial mass murder of 27 women in Vancouver in the time since Lépine committed his shorter-lasting crime in Montreal doesn't count.

The deaths from exposure resulting from police misconduct in the Prairies don't count. The abusive horrors of the residential schools for First Nations kids out west and wayward kids down east a couple of generations ago don't count.

Hell, Hurricane Hazel doesn't count.

Just so's you know, Montreal had a homicide rate of 1.3/100,000 last year, as compared to a record high (for the last decade) of 2.0/100,000 for the country as a whole, 4.9 in Edmonton, 4.0 in Regina and 2.9 in Vancouver:
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/060720/d060720b.htm
Quebec's violent crime rate was well below the national average, with the western provinces topping the list.


Yes, it might seem strangely coincidental that two such similar shootings should happen in the same city, 17 years apart as they are. But then, one has to wonder whether the fact that one had already happened was not a factor in the second one happening.


I was within metres of where this happened, a couple of weeks ago. (Don't live in Montreal; hadn't even visited in years.) Nothing bad happening at all.



____

For anyone interested, and not à propos of the post I'm replying to, don't miss a few others making their own points in all this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x128664

[IronLionZion]

15. my apologies, it was a dumb thing to say

i said it because I just read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_attacks_in_Canada

and saw that the worst attack was from an Air India plane that took off from Montreal. I saw Montreal the most on that list and jumped to conclusions.

I have nothing against the great city of Montreal.

[PeaceProgProsp]

20. There was also a university shooting at McGill a couple years

ago, no?

[Amonester]

24. It was at Concordia University. McGill never had similar incidents.

August 24, 1992.
Shootings of five people by former Concordia Mechanical Engineering Professor Valery Fabrikant.

http://www.communications.uwaterloo.ca/Gazette/1992/Gazette,%20September%209,%201992/Police%20chief%20comments%20after%20Concordia%20shootings

~snip~
"I don't think you can prevent something like that if someone wants to do it," UW security director Al MacKenzie told the Gazette in a conversation about the Concordia killings.

He referred as well to the December 1989 shootings at Ecole Polytechnique
...

Said MacKenzie: "I think it was pretty well understood, even after Ecole Polytechnique, that that could happen anywhere, any time
...
~~~~

[aikoaiko]

28. My sympathies to CAN and the victims and familes specifically.

Of course this incident will (and in some cases already) being used as fodder for agendas. I have no doubt there we be another thread in the Gungeon about it. Hopefully it won't get locked.

I don't know how you feel about but I wish it didn't get locked -- deleted a few messages I understand. Recent tragic deaths of innocents are cause of many contentious threads in DU -- especially in the General Discussion.

From another post it sounded like you were very close to the previous massacre in Montreal. Were you involved in the investigation?

[iverglas]

31. not involved ...

From another post it sounded like you were very close to the previous massacre in Montreal. Were you involved in the investigation?

As part of my job, I (twice, quite a few years after the murders) had to read the Montreal coroner's report on the 1989 Polytechnique murders (it was of course written and released in French). I read both parts -- the analysis of the response by the Montreal police and emergency services (which concluded that the probability of death in the case of each individual who died was 100%, based on the severity of their injuries, e.g. vs. the severity of injuries for people injured in the same event who did not die, despite the poor performance of the police and emergency services). I also read the part that consisted of the details of the post mortem examinations of each individual.

This isn't something that most people, including me, ever do in the ordinary course of life. The only other post mortem examination report I have ever read was three years ago, when the coroner provided my family with the report of the examination of my father's body; the circumstances of his death had been inconsistent with the metastacized melanoma he was dying of, and we had asked questions that led to the autopsy. (It was determined that he had an undiagnosed quadruple coronary artery blockage that was the immediate cause of his death, and this not only provided us with the bit of comfort that comes from understanding, but alerted us kids -- the coroner specifically advised us to have the relevant medical testing -- that we were at risk of the hereditary condition in question.)

My mother waited until I was with her, for me to be the one to read the report and explain to her what it said, without her having to read it, with all the details it contained of things like the weight of my father's brain. It is a very strange experience, for the layperson, to read the details of a body that you knew as a person.

I did not know the Polytechnique victims, but the experience of reading their post mortem reports (I worked with the material for a couple of weeks) was horrible. Each report started with a description of the clothing they were wearing when they died, which was presumably still on their bodies when they were received for post mortem examination because the women were all dead when they were found by police/emergency workers. As I mentioned in the other post, this included a description of the kind and colour of socks they were wearing. This at least brought home to the reader -- me -- that these bodies were people, but made it all the more difficult to read about their bodies.

Each autopsy report described the trajectory that the bullets had taken through the victim's body. Ricocheting off bones, piercing flesh and bone and muscle and organs, in a split second ripping through them and stopping their lives. When people we know die -- and we seldom see them die, or see their dead bodies other than prettified in funeral homes -- we think of them as dead people. When you read something like this, you are seeing, virtually though it is, their deaths and then their dead bodies. It isn't like watching someone get shot, or die, on TV, or even in real life.

When my dad died and I read the port mortem report, I still knew him as my dad. For the women killed at the Polytechnique, I knew them only from the moments of their deaths: dead bodies ripped up by bullets who had once been people with names and ages and addresses and parents, and who wore sneakers and sweat socks and jeans and jackets and carried book bags. That kind of knowledge is on a different plane from either knowing them as people who are now dead or not knowing them and now knowing that they are dead. It's a little difficult to deal with because it is so foreign to one's experience.

I say "I" in all this not to report on or seek sympathy for my trauma -- and it was traumatic, poring over those reports (for me, partly because of PTSD from my own near escape from murder, of a non-firearms variety, but also just traumatic for any layperson to have to immerse him/herself in). In the context in which I mentioned it yesterday, I was pointing out how many people beyond the friends and family and victims of the Polytechnique murders had been affected, and traumatized, by them -- few had to deal with it in the way I did, but Canadians in general were indeed traumatized by it.

And the Polytechnique murders were indeed a catalyst for firearms control measures that came later; that is a simple fact that was being mentioned in the Canadian media when the memory of the Polytechnique murders that this event brought up for most people, also a simple fact, was mentioned.

[MaineDem]

13. Really?

That's a silly statement.

For one thing, I remember a shooting at Tim Horton's in Toronto.

Why single out Montreal?

And there's a lot less crime in Canada than in the US.

[IronLionZion]

16. this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_attacks_in_Canada

I just Montreal a lot on that list, that's all. No offense to the great city of Montreal or its people.

[iverglas]

17. Montreal is a large city

Interestingly, there's a damned lot of right-wing Cuban violence on that list that I didn't really remember. That and anti-Indian violence by Sikh extremists account for a lot of the incidents. Of course the FLQ era was unto itself.

That's quite an interesting list. I think that any comparable one for the US would be rather shorter; certainly per capita. Mind you, including assassinated politicians would change the balance (we only have D'Arcy McGee).

It's an odd sort of list, though. "Terrorist" is not how I would describe Marc Lépine, really; yes, he screeched about feminists, but really, he was crazed.

And that bit about the storming of the Iranian Embassy (actually the second occupation of the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa; the first didn't make the list). Not what I'd call "terrorist", since it was non-violent and was directed against a terrorist state; people involved in that action had spent time in that state's prisons. And the Mujahedin-e-Khalq is of course NOT a "religious right" movement; that's just bizarre. The Khomeini régime called them "religious hypocrites", because they claimed Islam and were leftists.

The one that didn't make the list, though:

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-73-1062-13729/politics_economy/jean_chretien/clip11

• Lax RCMP security was also blamed for the slow response to a knife-wielding intruder at the prime minister's residence. On Nov. 5, 1995, André Dallaire broke into 24 Sussex Drive and confronted Chrétien and his wife, Aline. The couple locked themselves in their bedroom and waited for the RCMP to arrive, which they did, seven minutes later. Chrétien later described how he had armed himself with an Inuit bird carving for self-defense.
• Dallaire, a paranoid schizophrenic, was later found guilty but not criminally responsible for attempted murder.

And of course the same prime minister's encounter with a pie 5 years later (and I should probably include a protestor's encounter with said prime minister's hands around his neck):

http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2000/08/16/pie_000816



And one more serious:

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-70-1308-7634-10/on_this_day/disasters_tragedies/lortie_gunman

"The government now in power is going to be destroyed." Those are the words of Denis Lortie, a Canadian soldier who walked into the Quebec National Assembly carrying a sub-machine gun. He killed three people and wounded 13 others. Just before his shooting spree, he had dropped off a tape at a local radio station explaining his plans to destroy the Parti Québécois. ...
• In his efforts to destroy the Parti Québécois, Denis Lortie killed three government employees: Georges Boyer, Camille Lepage and Roger Lefrançois.
• Lortie did not kill or wound any politicians.
• The Assembly's sergeant-at-arms, René Jalbert, heroically stepped in to calm Lortie. He offered him a coffee and a sandwich, then talked him into letting everyone else go. According to a May 9, 1984 Globe and Mail article, most of the National Assembly staff credited Jalbert for saving their lives. "We will never forget what Mr. Jalbert did," said one staff member. Several months later, Canada awarded Jalbert with the Cross of Valour for his bravery in this situation.

[breakaleg]

14. Not true.

[Canadian Socialist]

18. Update from CBC

Montreal police shoot school gunman dead after rampage

[tjwash]

19. College: 2 gunmen dead after shooting

Entire Story Here.

MONTREAL, Quebec (CNN) -- Fears that "multiple shooters" were firing weapons at Dawson College in downtown Montreal prompted police to cordon off the 12-acre campus Wednesday, a police spokesman said.

Two of the gunmen were killed, the college administration office said in a recorded message. One of the gunmen was shot by police, the message said.

Police would not confirm that two shooters were dead.

Six students were critically wounded, the message said.

Police were using search dogs in a door-to-door search for a gunman or gunmen Wednesday afternoon, the spokesman said.

Another police spokesman told reporters that a SWAT team was in the college because "we believe there might be other suspects inside the Dawson College."

He would not say how many people were injured or killed but that "we've got people in very serious condition."

The shots were randomly fired in the cafeteria and atrium, and students said they didn't think anyone was targeted, said reporter Genevieve Beauchemin with the television station CFCF. Students told Beauchemin that at least one of the gunmen was dressed in black.

[iverglas]

22. NYT now says 20 wounded

Google news is making me crazy -- of the 100s of sites with stories, it keeps spewing up Bloomberg and Reuters and Australian media and US radio stations, not the local sources.

I'm wondering, though, whether the local/national media are holding back on reporting because of family notifications. The "four dead" (an AP story I think) was published all over the world but not here.

From googlenews search results snippets --

Aljazeera says:
At least one woman has been killed and 20 people injured, some critically, after a man opened fire in a college in central Montreal, security forces say
("security forces"??)

Reuters says:
Two dead, 19 hurt in Canada college shooting

Canada.com says:
Twenty people wounded in shootings at Montreal's Dawson College

That seems to be the current number, having apparently replaced the "four dead" report.

Ah. The Gazette says:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/index.html
A woman in her 20s has died of her injuries after being shot by a gunman who walked into Dawson College and opened fire this afternoon.
The woman – one of 11 people who suffered gunshot wounds – died just before 6 p.m. in hospital, Radio-Canada reported.
By late afternoon, police confirmed the gunman had been shot and killed by police.
The Montreal General Hospital said it admitted 11 victims, including eight who were in critical condition. Two victims were taken to the Jewish General Hospital. In all 20 people were treated for injuries.


Time to go home and turn on the teevee and see what they're saying. Another horrible school day for too many people.


(aside for the person who asked: the other Montreal school shooting was at Concordia in 1992; a faculty member named Fabrikant, originally from the USSR, who had just been denied reappointment, who went off the deep end, seriously paranoid, and shot and killed 3 faculty members)

[Blue_Tires]

23. very sad

[Amonester]

25. Yes, it is.

[Canadian Socialist]

26. The day after

facts are starting to come out..
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/National/2006/09/14/1838483-sun.html">'Life sucks'

[iverglas]

27. ----> access to the deleted blog of the man who did the killing

His blog has been removed from vampirefreaks.com (and the site cannot be accessed this morning, apparently too much demand). My partner just sent me this:

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:I3pvdq9pT1MJ:
vampirefreaks.com/u/fatality666+fatality666&hl
=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=2&ie=UTF-8
(copy and paste)

cached version of blog of man who did the killing. As he said: quick before it gets yanked.


And update.

One woman is dead, in addition to the man who shot her; about 5 others remain in critical or very serious condition, two with head wounds. Reports about how the dead man died vary; one is that he was shot in the leg by police and then shot himself in the head. The police, however, report that he was killed by the police. The Sûreté du Québec -- the Quebec provincial police force -- is investigating that death, because it involves a shooting by the Montreal police.

The dead student is Anastasia DeSousa, aged 18, a student at the college.

Apparently there were two Montreal police officers on the scene when the incident began, on a drug investigation. The Montreal police and emergency services had been severely criticized for their response to the Polytechnique shootings in 1989, but their response in this case was immediate.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060913/montreal_shooting_060914/20060914?hub=Canada

Delorme said the lessons learned from the 1989 Montreal Massacre when Marc Lepine murdered 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique, helped save lives. Emergency service workers now understand the need to coordinate and act quickly, and police have been trained to move in and deal with a suspected shooter right away, he said.

"Before our technique was to establish a perimeter around the place and wait for the SWAT team. Now the first police officers go right inside. The way they acted saved lives (today)."

The individual who did the shooting was Kimveer Gill, aged 25. He lived in a small city that is essentially a suburb of Montreal, with his mother. He maintained a blog on a site called vampirefreaks.com -- which you will probably not be able to access this morning; I was unable to, likely because it was too busy. In any event, his own blog has been taken down, and I have not seen any reports identifying his blog by name. However, I have accessed a cached version of the main page at google:

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:3zSvc3QjAzIJ:
vampirefreaks.com/+vampirefreaks.com&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1

-- copy and paste url -- I also found I had to "block" (ctl-a) the text on the page to read it, as it seems to be black on black. The cached version dates from Sept. 6. I was not able to connect to links for any of the discussion threads on the page, either.

His blog contained a number of photos of him in a long black trenchcoat posing with his firearm, presumably the one used in the shootings. (Questions are being asked by people emailing the media in Canada about why there was no police monitoring of such sites -- a photo of someone with a semi-automatic rifle discussing doing violence might have been expected to raise some questions. One would think that such proposals are somewhat unrealistic, particularly given that the site most likely originates in the US.) He voiced hatred for jocks, preppies, hip hop and country music.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060914.wmontshoot0914/BNStory/National/home

The Canadian Press reported this morning that on a website where his profile has now been taken down, Mr. Gill included a photo of a tombstone with his name printed on it below it the phrase: “Lived fast died young. Left a mangled corpse.”

... “I think I have an obbsetion with guns ... muahahaha,” is the inscription below another picture of Mr. Gill aiming the barrel of the gun at the camera. ... Other reports Thursday morning said his favourite video game was called “Super Columbine Massacre.”

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=d558898f-6bfb-4a79-aa4b-b1d60a940a1d&k=56193

?size=l
(link to photo appears not to work; see at site linked)
Kimveer Gill, of Laval, north of Montreal is shown in this undated photo taken from a website. Gill is being named as the gunman in the Dawson College shootings by the Montreal La Presse newspaper. A trenchcoat-clad shooter with a scowl and a Mohawk haircut turned a college cafeteria into a combat zone with a commando-style assault that left him and a young woman dead Wednesday. (CP PHOTO)

"Rock and Roll baby!" reads the caption below another photo, tongue outstretched, holding up a black semi-automatic weapon with one hand and making the sign of the devil with another.

There are thousands of news reports at google news.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060913/montreal_shooting_060914/20060914?hub=Canada

A blog maintained by Gill contains more than 50 photos depicting the young man in various poses holding a Baretta CX4 Storm semi-automatic rifle and wearing a long black trenchcoat and boots.

[aikoaiko]

29. whoops nevermind, I see you cut and paste

[iverglas]

30. photo gallery and journal

There isn't anything there to see, but for those who are curious -- and I was.

http://vampirefreaks.com/journal.php?u=fatality666

http://vampirefreaks.com/gallery.php?u=fatality666

While his main blog has been taken down, it seems that the journal and photo gallery sites were missed.

The journal goes up to 10:41 yesterday morning ... and says absolutely nothing.

[iverglas]

41. comments on Gill's webpage

His photo gallery is still open for comments to be posted, bizarrely. And a few people have posted since the deaths.

Trench stares at the wall e.g.

The photos reproduced in the media, of Gill posing with the Beretta, seem not to be there now.

[MsMagnificent]

52. “Super Columbine Massacre” ?!

What the HELL is a video "game" like this doing out?

I hope to God they get sued for everything possible. Completely irresponsible!

[rman]

32. "Strategy of Tension"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension

Gladio - BBC Timewatch (1992)
http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/video_CIA.htm
Three-part series investigating the secret activities of 'stay behind' units in Europe after the Second World War. Exposes the clandestine terrorist activities of these groups in Belgium & Italy, and their involvement with the CIA. Directed by Allan Francovich.

[iverglas]

34. what planet did you wander in from?

The event in question took place in Canada, and you apparently know nothing about the event or Canada. Feel free to read and learn.

And feel free to refrain from intruding into the grief of people you do not know by trying to turn their experiences into a scene in some script being acted out somewhere else or in someone else's mind.

The strategy of tension (Italian: strategia della tensione) is a way to control and manipulate public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, false flag terrorism actions and even terroristic actions.

This was not a terroristic action, there is no propaganda or disinformation or psychological warfare and no agents provocateurs involved. This was a crime, committed for no purpose other than the one it achieved: to kill a person or persons and to gain whatever benefit for the person who did the killing that he sought to gain from it. And that is exactly how it is being reported for consideration by public opinion.

The public is concerned about its safety from people with violent fantasies and guns, who form and carry out projects like this. I'm sure that your dumb and disrespectful insinuations about the public who have these concerns would be welcomed by them: why don't you write a letter to the Montreal Gazette, say, explaining to the family and friends of the victims, the students at the college, the residents of Montreal and the great stupid Canadian public at large how they're being manipulated? ... presumably by a government or governments who sent a seriously sick individual with a semi-automatic firearm into their midst to kill them ... who are of course acting at the behest of the CIA ...

[rman]

35. Performing random, not-claimed acts of terror is part of

a strategy of tension. Another way is to blame it on some individuals, group or movement that is an obstruction to the goals.

It makes people feel insecure, making it more likely for people to turn to authorities to ask for more protection, which paves the way towards police state because it allows authorities to ask of people to sacrifice freedom for security.
This does not happen on some other planet and it is not theory - see the BBC docu i linked to.

The fact it is part of manipulation does not change anything about the tragedy of these events.

[iverglas]

36. "fact"?

The fact it is part of manipulation does not change anything about the tragedy of these events.

Do you have a blog somewhere that we should be keeping an eye on?

Please go away. Find someone else's tragedy to play with and poop on. This one, and the college and city and country it happened in, is not your sandbox.

[rman]

38. Since you indulged me, i felt free to respond. nt

[krispos42]

47. Good smackdown, Iverglas!

Sometimes a random crazed shooting spree is just a random crazed shooting spree. It is amazing how some people think that all high-profile attacks are being controlled by secret microwave transmissions sent by hyperintelligent 12-legged omnivorous marsupials from the the planet Thorzon in conjunction with the Mossad, the CIA, Jerry Garcia, and the Freemasons.

[LanternWaste]

39. Just curious...

Just curious... what leads you to believe this particular and specific act of violence was spurred on by the "left-behind" armies and the Masons?

[rman]

43. Not left-behind armies;

Canada is not post-WW2 Europe. The excuse of fighting communism is not necessary to institute a strategy of tension; that's just a matter of local historical circumstances.

What makes this case look suspicious to me is the dressing up, the apparent lack of motive. Inconsistencies in the story: first police says it's three shooters, later it's only one.

[iverglas]

44. it is indeed unfortunate that you know nothing of what you speak about

What makes this case look suspicious to me is the dressing up, ...

Many people "dress up", a lot of the time. Not a few dress like Gill. Are all of these silly goths sleeper CIA agents? How 'bout preppies and cowboys; them too? Watch out; there's probably somebody dressed up somewhere not too far from you. Maybe they're coming to get you.


... the apparent lack of motive. ...

Lack of motive? Unlike Lépine, who fixed his insane rage on women. Or the people who fix their insane rage on abortion providers. Or people who batter babies. Quite the criminologist, you.


Inconsistencies in the story: first police says it's three shooters, later it's only one.

Yeah, they planned that well, didn't they? You'd 'a thunk they coulda got their story straight ahead of time.

FYI, as I understood it, the idea of multiple offenders originated with an eyewitness or eyewitnesses who saw Gill walking toward and entering the school and thought that there were others with him. Here ya go:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2006/09/13/montreal-witness.html

Man with trench coat fired outside school too

Another witness told CBC News she was smoking outside the college when she saw a tall, white man wearing a long black trench coat walk down the street with a large gun.

He was with a number of other people, said the woman, who was shaking and crying as she spoke.

... SWAT team was screaming, 'Where is he?'

"We ran out of the building as a SWAT team was coming in," student Michel Boyer told CBC. "They were screaming 'Where is he? Where is he?' And when you have 20 police running at you with guns you really know that your life is in danger."

Obviously, police had to operate on what little information they had and err on the side of safety. They closed down a subway line so they could do a thorough search (Dawson connects to the subway, underground).

The story now at the CBC link incorrectly citing four deaths that I posted late yesterday:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/09/13/shots-dawson.html

Earlier reports had said as many as three shooters walked into Dawson College. At one point, police had told local media outlets that two gunmen were dead and a third was still at large.

As you may or may not have heard, police and emergency services were severely criticized for their response to the 1989 Polytechnique shootings: they had essentially set up a security perimeter and not entered the school or allowed emergency workers in for quite a long time. They revised their practices, and this time they went directly and immediately into the building; this obviously meant that they had not gathered information before acting, and did not have accurate information at the time the messages were conveyed, because they were still trying to determine what had and possibly was happening, and acting on what little information they had received.


Once again, your disrespect overflows. But hey, if we ever run out of foreigners wanting to tell us what is really going on in Canada (which is unlikely; there's quite a stock right around here), maybe somebody will give you a call.

Meanwhile, if the brigade could stick to putting its own imaginary fires out and refrain from telling the rest of us we're burning up and too stupid to notice, it would look good on ya.

[iverglas]

33. what the media aren't asking and should

It seems to go without saying, but it needs to be said.

I have not heard one reporter ask police about the firearm used; obviously police will likely have no answers at this point -- although if the firearm was legally sold in Canada, the firearms registry will already have identified its legal owner. But the issue simply needs to be raised: how did this individual obtain a restricted firearm and a prohibited device -- the Beretta CX4 Storm he apparently used, and the illegal-capacity magazine?

http://www.cfc-cafc.gc.ca/compliance-conformite/bulletins/businesses/bulletin-55_e.asp

Beretta is now producing a 10-cartridge magazine designed specifically for the CX4 Storm rifle. The law sets a maximum capacity of five cartridges for magazines designed for a semi-automatic, centre-fire long gun such as the Beretta CX4 Storm rifle. A 10-cartridge magazine with a CX4 Storm stamp on it is prohibited unless it has been permanently altered so that it cannot hold more than five cartridges.

If your business has any CX4 Storm rifles in its inventory, please check the magazine to see which version you have. A CX4 Storm stamp on the magazine indicates it is a prohibited device. Please note that the presence of a prohibited magazine does not affect the classification of the firearm itself. The Beretta CX4 Storm rifle remains classified as a restricted firearm.

http://www.cfc-ccaf.gc.ca/compliance-conformite/bulletins/police/bulletin68_e.asp

Some businesses and individuals may already have acquired a Beretta CX4 Storm with a prohibited magazine. A business may legally possess it if it is licensed to possess prohibited devices for an approved purpose. Individuals may not legally possess a prohibited device.

Here, it would be available to "collectors" and sports shooters who belong to shooting clubs, but that is all (and many people already thought it was too much). This is a simple fact; what anyone thinks of Canada's firearms laws is irrelevant. Gill was in illegal possession of the magazine, and if he was in legal possession of the firearm, there will be more questions raised about the wisdom of the laws that made that possible.

I gather the Beretta runs about $700 US in the US. Ah yes:
http://www.gunslive.com/cx4-storm,itemname,12728,id,auctiondetails

and here it is at the West Edmonton Mall for a mere $925 Cdn:
http://www.shootingcentre.com/index.php?page_id=1016

Designed to meet the needs of law enforcement, the new Cx4 Storm is also excellent for sport and home defense.
The fixed barrel design and long sight radius (12.9") make this gun inherently accurate. The 5¾ lb. weight and overall length of 29.7" make this Carbine light and compact. semi-automatic blowback design is simple, rugged and reliable.

$950 here:
http://www.p-d-ent.com/pages/firearms/3-Long-Res.htm

Buyers who are not purchasing for the purpose of “Collecting” should be members of a gun range and have a valid membership card.

Maybe Gill had a collector's licence; maybe he'd gone and joined a shooting club. Maybe some Hell's Angel liked the colour of his money. Inquiring minds would like to know.

[benEzra]

37. You guys have a FIVE round limit for rifles?

I thought your limit was ten. Only five?

U.S. news reports were saying that he carried the 9mm carbine, a handgun of some sort, and one other gun. Do you have any info on that? (A lot of our early reports were very garbled, with some early claims being wildly off the mark.)

FWIW, the Storm is a pistol-caliber carbine, meaning that it is essentially a pistol with a long barrel and shoulder stock. It comes in 9mm and .40 S&W, as I recall. Some pistol-caliber carbines can use ordinary pistol magazines, e.g. the Ruger PC-9 takes ordinary Ruger handgun magazines. I don't know if the Storm is compatible with Beretta pistol mags or not (in Canada, probably not, since no pistol magazines have capacities that low). The 10-round magazines for the Storm were presumably developed for U.S. jurisdictions that limit magazine capacities. A 10-round 9mm magazine is VERY short (around 3 inches, IIRC), shorter than the Storms' grip; my wife's subcompact 9mm pistol is sized for a 10-round 9mm magazine, and that gun is only 4 inches high; the magazine is only about 3 inches long.

Added on edit:

Someone in another thread posted the following information. Iverglas, do you know if this is accurate?

As a side note the Beretta CX4 is a carbine that fires pistol bullets from a pistol magazine. As such it is allowed in Canada to have 10 round magazines instead of 5 round magazines which is the law for semi auto rifles there I believe.

Added on second edit:

I just answered my own question, from the link in Iverglas' post:

As set out in Criminal Code Regulations, the classification of a magazine depends on the type of firearm a magazine was designed to be used in, not the type of firearm it is actually used in.

When the Beretta CX4 Storm rifle was first produced, it used a 10-cartridge magazine that was designed for a handgun. Most magazines designed for a handgun may legally hold up to 10 cartridges, even when used in a rifle.

Beretta is now producing a 10-cartridge magazine designed specifically for the CX4 Storm rifle. The law sets a maximum capacity of five cartridges for magazines designed for a semi-automatic, centre-fire long gun such as the Beretta CX4 Storm rifle. A 10-cartridge magazine with a CX4 Storm stamp on it is prohibited unless it has been permanently altered so that it cannot hold more than five cartridges.

A Beretta pistol magazine that meets Canada's 10-round capacity limit for pistols can be used in the Storm. But if Beretta ships a magazine with the carbine that was made for the carbine, rather than for a pistol, then it runs afoul of Canada's 5-round rifle capacity limit, even though it's still a pistol-caliber gun feeding pistol rounds out of a pistol-derived magazine. So 10-round magazines marked "CX4 Storm" are illegal by a technicality, but most 10-round magazines for the Storm would appear to be legal.

[iverglas]

40. and in that other thread ... :)

to summarize: there seems to be a weird loophole in the law/regs, that means that while the 10-round Beretta CX4 magazine may not be sold, a handgun magazine that can be used with the Beretta may be purchased.

What I can't figure out is whether the restricted-weapon permit that someone would need to acquire either the Beretta or a handgun in any way specifies what weapon(s) it applies to, and thus whether ammunition purchases would be limited to ammunition that can be legally possessed for use with that particular firearm.

[benEzra]

42. Not sure I follow you...

What I can't figure out is whether the restricted-weapon permit that someone would need to acquire either the Beretta or a handgun in any way specifies what weapon(s) it applies to, and thus whether ammunition purchases would be limited to ammunition that can be legally possessed for use with that particular firearm.

The carbine uses the same ammunition as any ordinary 9mm pistol, so I'm not sure I follow you. That's why the rifle takes pistol magazines, because the carbine is essentially a small pistol in the body of a rifle.

There seems to be a weird loophole in the law/regs, that means that while the 10-round Beretta CX4 magazine may not be sold, a handgun magazine that can be used with the Beretta may be purchased.

Essentially, the CX4 magazine *IS* a handgun magazine, as the carbine was designed from the ground up to use existing Beretta pistol magazines. But, new-production magazines bundled with the CX4 are often manufactured with the intent of being shipped with CX4's, and it is these that the Canadian law disallows. I would call that a technicality, since they are still essentially bona fide pistol magazines, and I suspect that they would still fit and function in Beretta pistols, but because they are manfactured for the carbine then they fall under the rifle law (which was probably written with rifle caliber firearms in mind).

[krispos42]

48. Okay, found some info on the Storm

I remember reading about it in I believe Guns & Ammo a year or so ago when it came out. As G&A takes advertising dollars, they wrote it up pretty well. It was designed to use existing magazines from Beretta's pistol line. The 15-round Model 92 magazine, and, with the attachemnt of some sort of plastic clip or spacer, the magazine from another 9mm pistol, I think the Couger. Since it was designed use the pistol magazine of the Model 92 (which is a very popular pistol worldwide) then it makes sense it would ship with a limited-capacity 10-round magazine of the sort they would ship to California or New York.

Gun Tests magazine (no advertising) ran a side-by-side of the .40-caliber Storm in the May 2006 issue. It was not reviewed favorably due to poor ergonomics. Those racy-looking lines don't work so well on the range, apparently.

To quote: More and more we got the impression that the designers of the Storm had no idea what's needed in combat situations. The shooter could not get the magazine out properly, had to release his firing grip to operate the safety and slide stop, could not see through the rear sight easily, couldn't get his face down on top of the stock with ease or comfort, and on and on.

They gave it a "Don't Buy" rating.

[iverglas]

49. consensus appears to be

that it is a fun little toy for those with $1000 (Cdn) to spend in order to indulge their desire to shoot tin cans.

In our case here, it seems to have served to indulge the stupid boy's cartoon fantasies -- it's oh so futuristic looking and has lots of plastic. And it apparently worked well for the purpose to which he eventually decided to put it.

http://vampirefreaks.com/gallery.php?u=fatality666
http://vampirefreaks.com/picview.php?pic_id=8141576&user=fatality666&uid=718193&title=CX4+Storm+Semi-Automatic+Carbine&c=52&x=55&d=&g=1&s=0&fid=0

"CX4 Storm Semi-Automatic Carbine"

Jun 14, 2006, 05:21pm
Fuck that sa nice weapon you got there!

Aug 17, 2006, 02:29pm
woow :) very nice^^

Aug 24, 2006, 03:47am
wow verry nice ;)

Sep 14, 2006, 04:36am
are all the admirers happy now?

(and more)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060914.wmontreal0914/BNStory/National/

The blog was posted on the now infamous VampireFreaks.com, which has figured prominently in at least two high-profile killings in Canada in the past few years.

A 12-year-old and her 23-year-old boyfriend met on the site before being charged with murder in the deaths of an Alberta family in April.

In February, 2005, a judge declared a mistrial in the Johnathan murder trial, in which a three young men were charged in the slaying of the 12-year-old boy, after it was discovered that a key 15-year old witness may have perjured herself after her blog on VampireFreaks.com contradicted some of her testimony.

... The Sûreté du Québec said the guns found at the scene were legally registered and that they do in fact have units that try to monitor as many of these sites as possible.

"An initial preliminary look at his site didn't reveal to us that there was any information that he could have been a threat to society. There is no indication whatsoever that he could have done something like this. The guns are registered, but the site doesn't tell us that he's going to do anything."

[benEzra]

50. Is there any info on which guns were actually used?

...that it is a fun little toy for those with $1000 (Cdn) to spend in order to indulge their desire to shoot tin cans.

In our case here, it seems to have served to indulge the stupid boy's cartoon fantasies -- it's oh so futuristic looking and has lots of plastic. And it apparently worked well for the purpose to which he eventually decided to put it.

From your other post,

He packed an arsenal of three weapons - a 9 mm Beretta semi-automatic rifle, a Glock .45-calibre pistol and a 12 gauge shotgun.

The shotgun was by far the most lethal gun he carried; a single round of 000 buckshot discharges eight or nine 9mm projectiles, equal to nearly an entire magazine from the Storm; a 12-gauge can also fire huge 18.5mm bullets (slugs) 1 at a time. A .45 caliber (11.4mm) pistol is also significantly more powerful than a 9mm pistol or carbine, with the same rate of fire.

At Columbine, the 9mm pistol and carbine received most of the media and legislative attention, but IIRC the majority of the victims who died were those shot with the 12-gauge hunting shotguns. That may or may not be the case here.

[iverglas]

51. arms and the man

First, the man:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060915.wshooter15/BNStory/National

“What kind of world is this?” he wrote on his Web journal on July 13, exactly two months before he walked into the school and littered it with bullets in a half-hour rampage. “What the fuck is wrong with people. This world ... this life, is worst than hell.” (All posts are as they appeared on-line.)

In hindsight, Mr. Gill's on-line musings in the months leading up to his killing rampage were ominous — they showcase an outlook on life that was at times paranoid, racist, nihilistic and, almost always, uncontrollably angry.

In Mr. Gill's dark, insular world, none of his misfortunes were his fault.

Instead, he lay blame on the jocks, who used to bully Goths and never got punished for it. He blamed hip-hop music, which degraded women and featured “animals jumping up and down, like monkeys.” He blamed a government conspiracy. He blamed the police, whom he believed were monitoring his every move. He blamed the entire human race, which he felt ashamed to be a part of.

(Lookit that. A government conspiracy.)

ed. to add what I meant to say: what struck me, looking at his photo gallery (and that of people who had posted in his journal before his death), was the utter self-focus of it. Pictures of me, my gun, me, my boots, me, my knife, me, me, me. Boring and boring and boring. If I had a blog, I would post pictures of my cats, pictures of my gardens, pictures of my neighbourhood, pictures of Kimveer Gill and his guns and his boots ... It can be difficult to distinguish mental illness from the sheer self-indulgence of the stupid boy living in mummy and daddy's rec room and buying himself expensive little toys to admire himself playing with.


Now, I've had the impression that it was the Beretta he used, but I'm not finding anything that says that definitely. The details may not have been released. People seem to have been hit by single bullets, from what I can tell.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060915.SHOOTINGMAIN15/TPStory/
I may be repeating my links ...

Brandishing a rifle, he walked nonchalantly to the main entrance of Dawson College. He shot several people who were on the sidewalk, then proceeded inside, followed by two police officers who happened to be nearby.

Inside the college, Mr. Gill shot at random, but singled out Ms. De Sousa, who was shot repeatedly at point-blank range. The killer took at least two hostages, using them as human shields as police followed in hot pursuit.

In an exchange of gunfire with police, the gunman was hit in the arm. Mr. Gill then took his pistol, put it to his chin and pulled the trigger.

(I believe that is what Marc Lépine did as well.)

I wouldn't rely too much on the "rifle" reference; a Montreal student seeing someone with a long arm shooting people would not likely have a clue whether it was a rifle or a shotgun ... and then we have the problem of terminology in French, which often gets its carabines and fusils all muddled up ... so what was meant when you have an anglo reporter who wasn't gun-conversant speaking to a franco witness who wasn't gun-conversant could be a coin toss.

Ah.
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/National/2006/09/15/1843542-sun.html

After police shot him and he shot himself, his semi-automatic Beretta CX4 Storm and Glock 9 mm semi-automatic pistol were found at the Montreal college, where he gunned down 20 men and women Wednesday, killing one woman.

Apparently the shotgun was left in the car. I don't think it would have fit the image the way the fancy black plastic Beretta did.

Retired Montreal Police Det.-Sgt. Roger Granger said Gill's pursuit of legally registered weapons followed a similar pattern used by Marc Lepine, who killed 14 women at the city's Polytechnic school in 1989.

Granger, who investigated that slaughter, said the federal gun registry, created by the Liberals under former prime minister Jean Chretien, is "totally ineffective."

His licence application was signed by relatives, sources said, adding the future killer had no criminal or psychiatric record barring him from owning firearms.

"When you have your licence, you can command (order) your weapon by telephone or by Internet and that arrives in the next week," Granger said.

I still want to know whether he was a collector or a member in good standing of a sports shooting club; he had to be one or the other.

I'll let you read this one:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060915.wcharest15/BNStory/National
Quebec to push PM on guns
Tearful Charest vows to oppose Harper's plan to scrap registry

(The political context to keep in mind is: Charest is a former Progressive Conservative who went over to the dark side and became a Liberal to run for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party and became the Liberal Premier in the last election. The present Conservative Party is a mere front for the old Reform / Alliance, and has been purging most old PCers at the constituency level. One would imagine that there is political animosity between Charest and Harper not only because they are now in different parties, but because of the hatred of the neo-con Harper for the old-time Tories, and vice versa.)

[krispos42]

54. Gun owners are as suceptable to glitz and styling as everybody else

It's harder to do on guns, of course, but it happens on occasion. No doubt it is an visually striking firearm, but not something I would be inclined to purchase for that price. The review in "Gun Tests" gives even less reason to buy it, especially for $700.

This disturbed man was obviously image-driven. Perhaps he watched "Blade" or "The Matrix" one too many times; I don't know. Something snapped in him to cause him to do this.

You and others are right to note that undue attention is perhaps being given to the armaments he was carrying. While it is important in the police investigation for the exact types and capacities of the various weapons involved, we must not submerge the tragedy in excessive detail.

It is enough to know that the man carried a pistol-caliber carbine, a shotgun, and an autoloading pistol.

Here are some links for those that are so inclined for more research:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbine#Pistol_caliber_carbines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beretta_Cx4_Storm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun

[rman]

45. so, explain to me

how dwelling on technical details of guns is being respectful to the victims of this tragedy?

[iverglas]

46. well, I just don't know

I wonder what the difference might be between offering facts about the event -- the murder of a woman and the critical injury of several others by someone who used a firearm that Canadians just don't expect to see on the streets and in their schools -- and pretending that the event -- the murder of a woman and the critical injury of several other people -- was orchestrated by their government?

I just don't know.

The "technical details of guns" in this instance are relevant to the question of how and why Gill had the guns in question ... which is really quite relevant to the question of how and why these people were killed and injured.

We now know:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060915.SHOOTINGMAIN15/TPStory/

What is known is that Mr. Gill, who kept a blog on the website vampirefreaks.com, awoke Wednesday morning, listened to the music of Megadeth and guzzled whisky. He packed an arsenal of three weapons - a 9 mm Beretta semi-automatic rifle, a Glock .45-calibre pistol and a 12 gauge shotgun.

All the guns were legally registered in the killer's name.

and there are now obviously at least as many questions to be asked and answered about how and why he had the guns in question.

But hey, I'm sure it was all arranged by the CIA.

[galileo3000]

53. Peace, Love, Sympathy, and Condolences

To the family, friends, neighbors, and community that this tragedy directly affected, I send my love. To all affected by senseless violence in the world, I wish you peace. I will do my part in your honor to make the world a little more loving with the hope that my kindness eventually reaches some troubled soul. I will run a mile longer for my penance for any behavior I committed, or will commit that contributes to the heightened sense of animosity in this world. The worst efforts of the weakest people to make the world an uglier place only serve to highlight those who protect beauty, and struggle for truth and kindness..

--From the "Mary Ellen Carter" by Stan Rogers
And you, to whom adversity has dealt that final blow,
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!

Rise again, rise again,
Thou your heart, it be broken, your life about to end,
No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Be like the Mary Ellen Carter:
RISE AGAIN!

[iverglas]

55. thank you

The urge to understand what contributed to this event happening, and to find ways of preventing others like it from happening, is strong -- particularly in a community that has been traumatized by similar incidents within recent living memory (Montreal in general, the post-secondary academic world there in particular -- the Polytechnique, Concordia and now Dawson -- and Canada more generally).

Two of the victims remain in critical condition with head wounds; the hospital spokespeople are being circumspect and releasing no detail other than that, but reading between the lines, one expects their chances of survival are very poor.

The definitive word on Gill's possession of the firearms is that he was licensed, they were registered, and he was a member of a Montreal-area gun club, where he went for target practice. The same gun club was where Valery Fabrikant, the paranoid university professor who killed four colleagues at Concordia University in 1992, also trained.

Gill fired a total of 60 shots, 10 before entering the school, all from the Beretta. He killed himself with the handgun, a 9mm Glock 45, and had left the shotgun in a bag outside the school. He apparently spent time checking out the scene a month before the event, as shown on security cameras at the large downtown shopping plaza nearby.

It has been reported that family members of Gill signed the forms for him to be licensed to possess firearms, presumably simply as identity guarantors, although there may have been more involved in the licence to possess restricted weapons. His parents report that he was depressed once some time ago, and that since Christmas he had been spending more time playing video games. They thought his interest in firearms was just a new hobby.

The Conservative government is reacting by proposing more deterrent measures against individuals convicted of firearms-related offences. How clever. Obviously, the threat of a heavy prison term was very likely going to make Gill think twice before carrying out his project.

[anotherdrew]

56. did they test this shooters blood for Ambien? n/t

[NorthernSpy]

57. wonder how he got the guns & clips & ammo & such...

Ebay? Private sale? Theft? A local black market for guns?

But it's a minor point, I suppose. If someone wants something badly enough, they seem to find a way to obtain it in spite of all obstacles.

Just curious, that's all.

[iverglas]

62. it's explained in post 55

He was a member of a Montreal-area shooting club and had a firearms acquisition and possession permit which apparently included restricted weapons. The Berretta and Glock he had may be acquired only by people who either qualify as collectors (which is pretty easy) or are members of shooting clubs. The firearms were registered.

In the eyes of many members of the public, this is another illustration of the problem that these two exemptions cause. In Toronto, restricted weapons stolen in large numbers from "collectors" have been used in crimes and deaths. In this instance, someone who was plainly a poor candidate for possession of any firearms was able to obtain restricted weapons.

He also had a shotgun, which he left outside the college. Shotguns may be acquired by anyone with a licence, and no need or proposed use must be demonstrated or stated. In other words, even without the restricted weapons, he could have carried out the act.

His parents knew that he had the firearms, and they were blind to the fact that he had some serious problems. He had been treated for depression in the past, and they were aware that he had withdrawn and was isolating himself in recent months. Had they used their brains a little more -- gee, is a depressed, withdrawn, isolated person a good candidate for a firearm, even in his own interests? -- and reported their concerns to an appropriate authority, who knows? But public safety should not depend on some private third party taking on the job of policing firearms owners.

If someone wants something badly enough, they seem to find a way to obtain it in spite of all obstacles.

How Gill would have gone about acquiring these firearms other than legally, I don't really know. He doesn't actually seem to have had Hell's Angels contacts.

[sakabatou]

59. My friend goes to Dawson

She's okay, but still very shaken after the event.